The morning after the dungeon, the estate breathed like a wounded animal. Frost clung to the windows, and the halls hummed with the silence of withheld breath. Jack found Evangeline in the library, her fingers trailing over the spines of books she'd never read. Sunlight fractured through the stained glass, painting her in shards of emerald and gold. She didn't turn as he entered.
"You're late," she said, her voice stripped of its usual venom.
"You didn't summon me."
"I shouldn't have to." She plucked a volume from the shelf—Myths of the Forgotten Realms—and tossed it onto a mahogany desk. "Sit. We're rebuilding your education."
Jack hesitated. "My education?"
"If you're determined to meddle in my fate," she said, perching on the desk's edge, "you'll need to understand the real history this world buried. Not the drivel from your novel."
He sat. The book fell open to an illustration of a rose with thorns like serrated knives. Rosa Noctis. Evangeline leaned over him, her hair a curtain between them and the rest of the world. Her finger tapped the page. "This isn't just a flower. It's a covenant. My ancestors swore fealty to a power older than kingdoms. In return, the roses… whispered."
"Whispered what?"
"Secrets. Futures. Lies." Her breath warmed his neck. "They told my great-grandmother she'd die at sea. She burned her ships and drowned in her bathtub."
Jack's gaze flicked to her. "Do you believe them?"
"I believe they're a mirror. They show you what you fear most." She closed the book, her lips brushing his ear. "What do you think they'd show you, Riven?"
Before he could answer, the doors slammed open.
A guard stumbled in, clutching a bloody handkerchief to his face. "My lady—raiders. At the southern gate. They've taken Oren."
Evangeline went very still. "Alive?"
"They left a message." The guard extended a trembling hand. On his palm lay a black rose, its stem coiled around a slip of parchment.
"A gardener for a ghost. Sunset. Come alone."
The woods bordering the estate were a graveyard of shadows. Jack followed Evangeline through the skeletal trees, his boots sinking into moss that swallowed sound. She'd traded her gowns for a fitted leather jerkin, daggers glinting at her hips. He carried nothing but a lantern and the note, crumpled in his fist.
"You shouldn't have come," she muttered for the tenth time.
"And let you face them alone?"
"They want you," she snapped. "This is a trap."
"I know."
She whirled, her dagger pressed to his throat before he could blink. "Then why?"
Jack didn't flinch. "Because you'd go anyway."
Her blade trembled. For a heartbeat, he thought she might draw blood. Instead, she sheathed it with a curse. "Sentiment is a weakness."
"So is lying to yourself."
They reached the clearing at sunset. Oren hung from a birch tree, his wrists bound with thorned vines. Below him stood three figures cloaked in pelts stitched from wolf and shadow. The leader stepped forward, his mask a hollowed stag skull.
"The ghost arrives," he rasped. "And the viper, too. How… predictable."
Evangeline's hand hovered over her dagger. "Release him."
The stag-masked man laughed. "First, the truth. Who is he?" His bone-white finger pointed at Jack. "A spirit? A spy? Or a curse?"
Jack stepped forward. "Let Oren go. I'll answer."
"Jack—" Evangeline's warning was cut short as the raider yanked Oren's ropes, thorns biting into his flesh. The old man groaned, blood streaking the bark.
"Speak," the raider hissed.
Jack's mind raced. They think I'm supernatural. Use it. "I'm a shade," he said, the lie smooth as silk. "Sent from the realm beyond to protect House Vossaire."
Evangeline's eyes narrowed, but she stayed silent.
The raider tilted his head. "Prove it."
Jack lifted the lantern, its flame guttering. "Do shades fear fire?" He thrust his hand into the blaze.
Pain seared his skin, but he didn't cry out. The raiders recoiled. Evangeline's breath hitched—the only sign of her shock.
"Enough!" the stag-masked man barked. "Cut him down."
As the raiders sawed Oren's bonds, Evangeline lunged. Her daggers flashed, a dance of silver and blood. Jack grabbed Oren, hauling him behind a tree. The old man's breath rattled. "Fool boy… should've let me die."
"Not an option," Jack gritted out, ripping the thorns from his wrists.
A roar shattered the air. The lead raider charged Evangeline, his axe arcing toward her skull. Jack moved without thought. He tackled him, the axe embedding in the earth as they rolled. The stag mask cracked, revealing a face Jack recognized—Senator Veyra's lieutenant, a minor character from the novel. But he wasn't part of this…
Evangeline's dagger found the man's throat. "Tell Veyra his games end tonight."
The raider choked out a laugh. "You think… he leads us?" Blood bubbled on his lips. "We serve… the thorns."
He went still.
Oren survived, but the physician's prognosis was grim. Jack lingered in the doorway of the infirmary, watching Evangeline pace like a caged wolf.
"You shouldn't have lied," she said abruptly.
"It worked."
"You burned yourself." She seized his bandaged hand, her touch startlingly gentle. "Why?"
He met her gaze. "Would you believe me if I said I'm getting fond of your roses?"
Her grip tightened, then loosened. "Sentiment is a weakness," she repeated, but her voice wavered.
"Then let's be weak together."
She didn't let go.
That night, Jack found a new note nailed to his door.
"The thorns remember. The thorns always win."
Beneath it lay a single petal from Rosa Noctis—still bleeding black sap.
Chapter 4 End.